At the end of Dayna Macy's insightful new book "Ravenous," we learn how the lifelong food lover--and overeater--has lost over 25 pounds and three sizes.

But the more striking image is of Macy standing in an orchard with her family, eating a ripe orange plucked straight from a tree. After a year of traveling across the country to better understand her complicated relationship with food, Macy finally found peace in one of life's simple pleasures.

"Weight can be gained or lost," she wrote. "Our judgments about our bodies are much harder to lose."

As a food writer, Macy had a deep love for tasty morsels, including chocolate, sausage, cheese and olives. And as a longtime yogi, she knew the benefits of a daily practice. But over the years, Macy steadily gained weight.

At 48, her twin boys were nine years old and she'd been with her husband, Scott, for 20 years. She was a size 18.

January 14, 2011

In his quest to learn why some people never get sick, Gene Stone has come up with 25 common-sense health “secrets” that he says all have a scientific underpinning.

Interestingly, he did not select getting a flu shot, closing the lid to the toilet before flushing (though evidence supports this health practice), taking various vitamin and nutritional supplements, eating a strict raw-food diet, eating certain foods (including oranges, apples and pomegranates), placing a humidifier in each room or changing the shower curtain on a regular basis. (But you may want to wash your shower head.)

So what did he choose? Garlic, herbal remedies, a plant-based diet, hydrogen peroxide, lifting weights, napping, eating dirt and cold showers, just to name a few.

I’ve tried nearly all of his 25 suggestions. The ones I haven’t been able to do on a regular basis — live in a blue zone and take cold showers — are just too daunting for me right now. So far, only five blue zones -- a geographic area with the highest concentration of the world’s longest-lived people — have been confirmed. The only one in the U.S. is in Loma Linda in Southern California, home to 9,000 Seventh Day Adventists.

Cold showers have been around a lot longer than hot ones, Stone points out. But while invigorating, I find them intolerable. Plus they leave me chilled for hours afterward.

Still, there’s a method I may try that’s easier than jumping in all at once, a practice that can hinder circulation. The following strategy is from Nate Halsey, who has taken a cold shower daily for about a decade and shared his secret with Stone.

“Turn the water on for thirty seconds or so, dip your head in long enough to get it wet, and turn off the water.

“Now that your hair is wet, wash it with shampoo.

“Turn on the water again. Return to the shower for less than thirty seconds, rinsing off your hair and wetting the skin. Turn the water off again, step out, lather with soap, turn the water on again and jump in, rinsing off the soap.”

You get the idea. Repeat with conditioner.

The entire event should take five minutes.

Stone cautions that extremely thin people may not be able to tolerate cold showers. Likewise, if you have a medical condition such as Reynaud’s disease or blood pressure issues, talk to your doctor before trying it.

January 13, 2011

Public speaking, a common source of workplace stress and anxiety, often means more than standing before an audience giving prepared remarks.

It may also require addressing colleagues around a conference table, speaking up during a performance review or asking a question from your seat in an auditorium, say the authors of the book "Work Makes Me Nervous," a self-empowerment training program.

"When all eyes are on you, that’s when the anxiety response can kick in," said Amy Lemley, who co-authored the book with anxiety expert Jonathan Berent.

To combat the embarrassing blushing, shaking or sweating that may occur, invoke the "quieting response," a five-minute technique that occurs automatically with practice, said Berent. Try it minutes before any event where you know you'll be noticeably nervous, as long as you have four or five minutes to yourself:

1. Do one to two solid minutes of diaphragmatic breathing — pacing each inhale. Exhale to 8 to 12 seconds. Focus on deep, steady breaths, rhythmic, natural and unforced.

2. Make a fist with your right hand and hold it for about 15 seconds. Then let go and focus on the looseness for 15 seconds.

3. Make a fist with your left hand and hold it for approximately 15 seconds. Then let go and focus on the looseness for 15 seconds.

4. Say to yourself three times, “My right hand is warm.” Saying that statement should take between 12 and 15 seconds.

5. Say to yourself three times, “My left hand is warm.” Saying that statement should take between 12 and 15 seconds.

6. Say to yourself three times, “I feel the blood flowing into my right hand.” Saying that statement should take between 12 and 15 seconds.

7. Say to yourself three times, “I feel the blood flowing into my left hand.” Saying that statement should take between 14 and 18 seconds.

8. Focus only on the rhythm of your diaphragmatic breathing for 30 seconds.

9. Close your eyes and, for 30 seconds, visualize in your mind’s eye: You are speaking in front of the group, accepting the adrenaline, using its energy for productive, effective speaking. You are organized, passionate, engaging and natural. You understand your audience and you have practiced.

10. Open your eyes. Take a deep breath. You are ready to go!

A few tips:

In the exercise, precision is important. "The timing of each step matters. Each complete inhalation-exhalation should take between 8 and 12 seconds," said Berent.

Practice when the pressure is off. "Consider using it as a daily exercise; soon, you’ll have a reliable tool that will boost your performance — and reduce your stress — in many areas of your life,” said Berent.

Cold hands indicate stress. But Berent says if you practice the developmental exercises in "Work Makes Me Nervous" you'll discover something remarkable: Your hands will respond to the word "warm" even if they are cold. "They are then able to harness the energy of adrenaline rather than trying to ignore it or avoid it," he said. "You often hear athletes and performers talk about being “in the zone.' That’s what we’re talking about."

January 10, 2011

One of the most common misconceptions about bodyweight exercises — push ups, pull ups and sit ups – is that you can’t adjust the difficulty of the exercise. Once you’ve mastered the basics, then what?

In fact, “the only limiting factor is your creativity,” said military fitness expert Mark Lauren, author of the new book “You Are Your Own Gym,” which includes 125 different bodyweight exercises.

“Every weightlifting motion can be mimicked, made harder or easier, with your own bodyweight.”

Lauren suggests using four techniques to change the difficulty:

• Increase or decrease the amount of leverage• Perform an exercise on an unstable platform• Use pauses at the beginning, end and/or middle of a movement• Turn an exercise into a single-limb movement (use one hand instead of two)

The push up, for example, works the chest, shoulders, triceps, abs, obliques and lower back. (Benching works just half of these muscle groups, said Lauren.)

The easiest push up involves standing up and pressing your arms against a wall. To make it more difficult, place your hands on a lower surface — for example, the edge of a desk or a windowsill. A classic push up – when both your hands and feet are on the floor – is harder still. And when you “put your feet on a coffee table and your hands on the ground, the exercise becomes significantly more difficult,” Lauren wrote.

A second way to increase the challenge is to add an unstable surface by placing one hand or both on a ball, such as a basketball.

Still harder would be to throw in a pause at the bottom of a basketball push up.

“Still not hard enough? Try doing them one-handed on the floor,” wrote Lauren. Then one-handed with your feet on the couch. Then on an unstable surface. Then with pauses. … You get the idea.”

Lauren maintains that bodyweight exercises burn more fat than aerobics and build more muscle than weightlifting. Moreover, bodyweight exercises are functional; they stabilize the body and prevent injury.

But the biggest plus, he said, is that they can be done absolutely anywhere. “On the road, in the living room, while the kids are taking a nap — you can always get a good workout that doesn’t cost any money,” said Lauren, a military contractor who recently returned from Afghanistan.

November 20, 2009

Neuroscientist Lise Eliot (left) writes about what’s nearest and dearest to her heart: Her children and their malleable brains.

The result is a compelling perspective on parenting, one that challenges conventional notions of sex differences. Yes, little boys reach for trucks. And little girls carry dolls. But in her latest book “Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can do About It,” Eliot deftly refutes the zeitgeist that sex differences are hard wired at birth.

Instead, she shows that parents unwittingly socialize their children during their earliest days.

Eliot, mom to Julia, 15, Sam, 13, and Toby, 10, believes the sooner parents can step in and tweak their kids growing neurons and synapses, the better their chances of raising both boys and girls with a well-balanced set of skills. She explained how from her office at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago.

Q: Are little boys and girls really from different planets?A: Most gender differences are relatively small; there’s enormous overlap in boys and girls interests and learning styles. We’re focused on this idea that boys and girls learn differently. But it’s just not true and it’s almost dangerous (to think that) boys are visual learners and girls are auditory. Teachers are hearing this in their so-called “brain-based” professional development seminars and I’m afraid it’s triggering a new era of stereotyping.

Q: How can parents help girls grow better brains? A: There’s clear evidence that building toys and spatial activities or targeting type skills are beneficial for mathematics. Boys gravitate toward these things—video games, Legos and baseball. Parents can step in while their girls are young to help develop those skills.

Q: Give us one tip to help a boys brain.A: If there’s one thing we’re worried about it’s the reading/writing gap. There’s no question that girls talk a little early than boys—one month on average—but the vast majority of verbal ability is a reflection on how much time is spent with books and texts. Parents need to make a greater effort to talk, read, and sing to their sons and to find books they really like. Even when boys are old enough to start reading on their own, they can still cuddle up at night and trade off reading pages.

Q: What is one thing you did right with your children?A: Immersing them in books. The boys are very good readers and not living up to that side of the stereotype. You hear that boys are more interested in non-fiction and those books aren’t often a parent’s first impulse. But (in my family) if we bring home a whole stack about solar system, or if we’re traveling and bring home books about another place or country, the boys really like to browse through them. They don’t necessarily have to read them from cover to cover.

Q: What’s one of your main messages to parents?A: Let’s stop labeling boys as these sociopathic warriors and let’s stop assuming all girls are dying for tiaras and makeovers. We have seen the value of masculinizing our daughters to prepare them for the work world and careers that are now open to them. But boys haven’t had anything like that shift in expectation. If anything, their available opportunities are shrinking.

Q: How does studying the brain’s plasticity affect your own parenting? A: I have the same issues as anyone with a demanding job. But it has probably made me more of a neurotic mother just thinking about their brains, what’s happening, the wiring and the connections.

Q: Do you worry parents will see your book as just one more thing to feel guilty about?A: I’m hoping it affects not just parents but teachers and the culture. And that it helps anyone interested in gender topics appreciate that nothing is hard wired. We are all good at the things we spend our time on and we can learn skills we never dreamed we could if we put time into it. The trick is convincing people they can do it.

The good ones stress that diets don't work in the long run and give readers useful information for making lifelong health changes that involve diet, exercise and sleep.

Some of the newer books stress a plant-based diet (with tips on how to avoid animal products) and focus on the emotional and behavioral aspects of weight loss and body image, rather than an actual diet plan.

Many also come with interactive Web sites where readers can create user accounts and track their progress and find name-brand lines of food products and nutrient supplements.

February 28, 2009

My home health library is full of books by experts who like to blend the best of conventional and alternative medicine. As pharmacist Suzy Cohen said in the "The 24-Hour Pharmacist, "Medications can be valuable to your health but you must keep your mind open to all options."